Green Beans

One easy way to save on the food budget is to grow your own vegetables, fruits and/or herbs. I am fortunate that I have room for all three. A lot of room is not needed to grow your own. I grow the herbs in conatiners on my back porch along with a bush tomato in a pot. They will move inside for the winter. I have seen a "Salad Garden" grown on a small balcony of an apartment. There were a couple of tomato plant, cucumber vine and small box of lettuce plants.

From just this small patch of green beans I picked over FIVE POUNDS of beautiful green beans. That was just the first harvest too.

I like my beans frozen (hubby prefers home bottled). I wash the beans and trim the ends. Then I place a layer of them on cookie sheets to place in the freezer to flash freeze them. I find I can pull them out of the bag easier that way since they don't all freeze together. Hubby and Oren cleaned and trimmed the first batch for me. I took care of the flash-freezing and packing (got 5 one-quart bags).

I like to sautee the bean in butter and garlic or just steam them. From this batch I took enough to make a side dish for our dinner of roast with potatoes and carrots. I sauteed some sliced red onion in olive oil. I then added the green beans, garlic powder, pepper and basil. I also added some apple juice so to give a sweet taste and steam the beans (done best with a lid on the pan). I then added some sliced tomatoes (also from our garden) and cooked for a minute or so longer.